‘Weird’ weekend has arrived for Mainieri as LSU visits USC

**The quotes in this story come from Paul Mainieri’s Wednesday interview with Matt Moscona on After Further Review

By Hunt Palmer

When Paul Mainieri accepted the job at South Carolina last summer, one of his first calls was to Jay Johnson.

From one LSU national championship coach to another, Mainieri wanted to be the one who broke the news. Johnson was immediately supportive.

“(Johnson) was like, ‘I’m glad you’re doing it. I’m happy for you if that’s what you want to do.’” Mainieri recalled. “I just said I’ve got to get it out of my system so I can sit back and enjoy watching college baseball again.”

And then Johnson broke some news of his own.

“(Johnson) said, ‘you know we’re playing the first year?’ And I said, ‘oh, no we’re not. You don’t play five opponents.’ I was praying that we weren’t playing each other,” Mainieri said to Matt Moscona on After Further Review. “But, unfortunately, here it is. I try not to think about it…It’s unavoidable now.”

Thursday night LSU and South Carolina start a three-game series to finish the 2025 regular season. Mainieri’s Gamecocks have limped to a 5-22 SEC record in year one.

Though Mainieri’s run at LSU is littered with successes, the first year in Baton Rouge was bumpy as well.

“That first year at LSU was a rough year,” Mainieri said. “I’m sure people thought that a new coach coming in, and you snap your fingers and right away everything is peaches and roses. We fought through that first year, and it was a tough year, but we laid the foundation for something really good.”

The core of the 2009 national championship team manned that 2007 squad that went 12-18 in SEC play and failed to reach NCAA Tournament play.

“We played four freshmen–Blake Dean, Sean Ochinko, Jared Mitchell and Ryan Schimpf–every day and let them go through the growing pains playing in the SEC, and it ended up paying off for us,” Mainieri said. “The biggest difference between that year and this year for me is we don’t have Jared Bradford pitching for us. Jared was probably the most underrated pitcher we ever had at LSU. That 2007 season, I think we won 12 games in conference play, and Jared either won or saved 10 of those 12 wins. We just haven’t had anybody like that here this year that’s been able to step up.”

LSU certainly has.

The Tigers enter the weekend 17-10 in league play and on the doorstep of securing a national seed. Though Mainieri has had his hands full with his own team, he’s kept tabs on his former program.

When he steps into the dugout Thursday night, he’ll see plenty of familiar faces across the way. One he won’t see on the mound is Kade Anderson. Johnson announced Wednesday that the Tiger ace would pitch on Friday to give him normal rest.

Anderson ranks second in the SEC in strikeouts, and that doesn’t surprise the former LSU head coach.

“I recruited Kade (at LSU),” Mainieri said. “I recruited him when he was a tenth grader and always was very high on Kade, and then he had the Tommy John surgery in high school. I remember watching him pitching in a scrimmage game on a practice day when he was a freshman, and he got hit pretty in a scrimmage game, and I just remember going into Jay’s office and visiting with him after the practice, and I said, ‘I really hope you don’t give up on that kid. I think he’s going to be special.’”

Anderson is not alone.

“Many of the players that are playing for LSU, not as many as the past couple of years, I know several of them because I recruited them—Jared Jones, Steven Milam, Josh Pearson, Ethan Frey,” Mainieri said. “Those are all kids our staff recruited to LSU. Never got to coach them, but certainly they’ve flourished, and I’m real happy for them.”

While assuredly Mainieri won’t be rooting on his former players and program over the weekend, once the Tigers leave town, he’ll have a keen interest on how the season ends.

He’s just got to get through the next three days.

“It’s going to be really weird for me,” Mainieri said. “When you love a place like I love LSU, spent 15 years there, 18 if you include three years as an ambassador, it becomes part of your life. It’s a major part of my life and something I loved every minute of…I have so many friends in Baton Rouge, and Baton Rouge is going to be my home for the rest of my life once I decide to retire for good. I don’t know when that will be, but it won’t be far off. I root for the Tigers, and now they’ll be in the other dugout. It’s going to be very strange…I’ll be glad when it’s over.”